Poverty and social inequality in the Philippines

Philip Gerson

Excerpt from "Poverty and Economic Policy in the Philippines," Finance & Development, A quarterly magazine of the IMF, September 1998, Volume 35, Number 3.

The incidence of poverty in the Philippines was not unusually high in the early 1970s, compared with a representative sample of Asian countries . . . but very slow subsequent progress in reducing the rate of poverty meant that by the early 1990s, the poverty rate was dramatically higher in the Philippines than in its neighbors. . . . In addition, income distribution in the Philippines, as measured by the Gini coefficient (a ratio of income inequality, with 0 representing absolute equality and 1 representing absolute inequality), is extremely unequal. Moreover, the Gini coefficient barely changed during 1957–94, varying only between 0.45 and 0.51. . . In 1994, the richest 20 percent of the population received 52 percent of the country's total income, nearly 11 times the share of the poorest 20 percent. These figures had changed little since the 1980s and had even become slightly worse: in 1985, the richest 20 percent of the population received the same share of national income as in 1994 and their average income was about 10 times that of the poorest 20 percent. The distribution of assets has also shown little improvement over the last few decades. Between 1960 and 1990, for example, the Gini coefficient on landholding worsened slightly.

Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/1998/09/gerson.htm